Feeling Jammed Up - Getting Beyond It

I’m grateful for our trusty photocopier that works very hard for us every month to produce daily meditation booklets that go out to individuals, prisons and drug and alcohol treatment centers across this country and around the world.

We recently replaced our aging photocopier with this newer one.  As happy as I am with how smooth things run these days, every now and then I hear the  the "00000beep beep beep" that something is wrong and the machine had stopped. 

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Often it’s a paper jam.  I have to go to several places where I know the paper gets jammed and pull them all out.   When I’ve done that I close up the covers and expect the machine to begin again. 

But sometimes, it just doesn’t’ work like that.  The display says there’s till a jam. I open the door and look around and close it again, but still the signal is still   there.  I've sometimes spent lots of time looking for those hidden sheets of paper. 

How often I’ve tried to convince myself that the machine is wrong and I am right.  However, every single time, when I do enough investigation, the machine is right and there is a piece of paper somewhere.

God often tells us things that run counter to our thinking and observing.  For years in meetings I've said, "When God and I disagree, I'm always wrong." 

It's true.  I may not like it.  I may not even understand why things are the way they are for some time but God is always right and the faster I get "with the program" and sort things out according to what He says, the better things go. 

And so Loving God, along with the writer of these words in the Bible, we pray:

Your word is like a lamp that guides my steps, a light that shows the path I should take.Lord, teach me your laws, and I will always follow them.  Help me understand your teachings, and I will follow them. Obeying them will be my greatest desire.

Psalm 119:105, 33-34

Even though there are lots of things we don't understand, we trust You and know that you know what You are doing in the middle of the complications of our lives.  Help us to stay simple and obedient to Your voice even as we only slowly understand and may never fully understand how all things are working together for good. Amen